no blog for old men
our odes to Man Repeller
Hello! I hope this dispatch reaches you somewhere with A/C. If you’ve been consuming the awful torrent of political news (plus media complicity) this week — in tune with our last edition — you may too want to decamp for an island where women make the rules. Moreover, you might be considering how you can help by supporting immigrant advocacy orgs.
To help recharge, I’ve enlisted my co-founder, best friend and personal style icon Danielle Fox to co-write this issue about the “nudist colony” also known as Man Repeller. Send me your fave MR posts at clippedmags@gmail.com!
<3, Natalie
Flaming heart ring via MR lookbook
On learning to care less — Natalie
The summer heat is sticky, and the female gaze is really hot right now. Trust me, I’ve even written about it. But nine years ago, before we were reeling from an accusation of rape or racism against the president seemingly every other week, a publication devoted to the female gaze was born. That publication is Man Repeller.
The lifestyle and fashion blog is seemingly built for this season, and it definitely came to the party wearing linen and toting dates (the medjool kind!!) all Diane Keaton-like. Better yet, it doesn’t want to talk to you about your dumb self-loathing or diet culture or frankly even politics.
Instead, the Man Repeller is ready to discuss why we don’t need to live for weekends or *pressure* of summer plans. It’ll absolve you of feeling like you’re lame for having a long-term romantic partner, or being a feminist and caring about a relationship, or not wanting to marry a perfect partner. I’ve sat at my god damn therapist and cited some of these articles, while examining hard why I keep telling stories about myself that are no longer true. Then there’s the candy.
Even I, a Man Repeller enthusiast, sit up at night wondering when I’ll get that breakthrough in my career or stop masking my own troubles and fears about love with humor. During those moments, I bet I can find a blog on Man Repeller to shift my mindset, reframe my own heap of trauma through a slightly different lens. If nothing else, I can read about somebody else’s “transformative moment” or shop an ironically detached bathing suit. Or absorb the praise of Jodie from MTV’s ‘Daria.’
Man Repeller was founded by Leandra Medine Cohen, who I have definitely seen strolling through Noho with a double stroller. As a 2014 article in The Cut put it: “Man Repeller is less political than Jezebel and less earnest than Tavi Gevinson’s Style Rookie, but it routinely weighs in on the same issues they would do.” As one Upper East Side boutique owner and observer put it, “It’s a really contemporary feminist manifesto of what women should think of themselves and should think of other women.” This article, which I hope Cohen has taped on her Filofax somewhere, goes on to say that she’d likely be friends with Nora Ephron and Joan Didion, if they were then in their twenties.
Here’s the thing: when you are consistently conscious of how poorly the world — work, life, spacesuits — is designed for you, you could use an oasis on the internet. Man Repeller is finely tuned to provide that oasis for a specific demographic of women to which I occasionally belong and gush, even laugh, with. I wonder what the pitch meetings are like as I show up late for meetings and say “thank you for waiting” but never “sorry.” Most importantly, through its spirit and style, I can learn in my ripe yet brutal twenties to give less of a shit.
Cohen @ Tech Crunch Disrupt NY in 2015 (via Flickr)
Two scoops of a better business model, with sequins on top — Danielle
If Man Repeller announced it was building a commune deep in the Appalachian woods, I’d be first in line—underwater basket-weaving supplies in tow.
I’m not just looking for an excuse to wear the Ralph Lauren fishing vest I bought last month. I genuinely think Man Repeller has done the best dang job of building a community in the whole-wide Media Candyland.
You can come hang out with them at their office! Or a street corner! Or an ice cream shop! You can wear your Man Repeller pride on your head, shoulders, knees or toes. You can model in their content. You could even date Leandra’s brother, who she offers up as “single uncle Haim” to her Instagram followers. You better believe I have insisted Natalie slide into his dms.
Man Repeller makes it a point to make their staffers’ interworkings *the point* of many articles/social franchises. The commodification of self in media and capitalism often worries me, but Man Repeller serves it up in a way that makes me come back for seconds and thirds and dessert. It’s how the team is so emotionally honest and open about their journeys and proud of one another and loving with one another.
They sold out a summer camp in 72 hours. They turn down opportunities to protect their brand and their fam. They walk the walk, talk the talk, and want you to join in on the conversation in a crowd-sourced article or below in their very robust comment section. And it’s very easy to tell when an outsider invades that comment section (see: the Edith Young as Pete Davidson article).
Those are just a few of the ways the Man Repeller community feels open and protective to me. Birds of the same feather/freak flag flocking together. So let me know about that commune. I volunteer to milk the oats.
also in women’s media
We’ll be listening to the new season of Bitch Media’s podcast Popoganda hosted by Carmon Rios
The pivot to freelance is a feminist issue (Refinery 29)
Check this absolutely incredible package on going to rehab (including affording it, talking about it, and supporting your loved ones who are struggling with addiction) in Cosmopolitan
I can’t lie; The Cut’s Stella Bugbee gets me excited for the next couple decades by way of example. Her conversation with activist Brittany Packnett is worth a listen.
“They never mentioned her name. It’s Sarah Milov.” (The Lily)
Another interview with Lizzo, because we can’t get enough (Vogue)
Romance Novelists Write About Sex and Pleasure. On the Internet That Makes Them Targets for Abuse (Glamour)
read more CLIPPED
